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ORANGE, California – A gunman opened fire at a real estate office in Southern California on Wednesday, killing four people, including a 9-year-old boy who authorities said appeared to have died in his mother’s arms while I was trying to protect him from the shots.
The shooting was likely related to a “business and personal relationship that existed between the suspect and all the victims,” Lt. Jennifer Amat, a spokeswoman for the Orange Police Department, said at a news conference Thursday morning.
“This appears to be an isolated incident and we believe everyone knew each other,” Lieutenant Amat said.
The boy appeared to have died in his mother’s arms as she tried to save him during the shooting, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said, warning that no formal identification had yet been made of the boy and woman. The woman was also injured in the shooting and remained in hospital Thursday, having undergone emergency treatment.
The suspect, identified as Aminadab Gaxiola González, 44, of Fullerton, was also hospitalized in critical condition with a gunshot wound, authorities said.
The victims, who also included a man and two women, were attacked at the offices of Unified Homes, which is a real estate and mobile home dealer, according to the company’s website. Police officers have yet to provide additional details about the victims.
At the scene, which covered two floors and a courtyard area of the building, officials recovered several items, including a semi-automatic pistol and a backpack containing pepper spray, handcuffs and ammunition, said Lt. Amat, which officials believe belonged to the suspicious.
González, the suspect, locked the gates of the complex with cable locks for bicycles and officers had to force their way onto the scene, authorities said.
In March, two mass shootings, one in Atlanta and the other in Boulder, Colorado, occurred within a week. In Atlanta on March 16, a gunman shot and killed eight people, six of them women of Asian descent, at three spas. On March 22, a man broke into a grocery store in Boulder and killed 10 people.
The Orange shooting made people nervous both near and far from the scene, in part because until the Atlanta shooting, it had been a year since there was a large-scale shooting in a public place in the United States, according to the Project. Violence.
But researchers say the type of violence that unfolded in the office building never disappeared during the pandemic, it just disappeared from view. Data from Project Violence shows that in 2020 there were more than 600 shootings in which one person shot four or more people, compared to 417 in 2019.
The shooting began around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in Orange, about 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles, according to authorities.
Two police officers unloaded their weapons at the scene Wednesday and both were wearing body cameras, said Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
As of Thursday, it was unclear whether the suspect’s injuries were self-inflicted or whether officers fired their guns, Edds said, adding that charges against the suspect would likely be filed sometime on Thursday.
Emma Soto, 26, who lives in an apartment near the building, was doing laundry when she said she heard seven to 10 shots.
“It just sounded like a bang,” he said. “It really didn’t sound like you imagined it, like it does in the movies. We’ve heard about all these shootings, so I thought, ‘Another shooting.’ But we never imagined that he would be so close to us. “
Almost immediately after hearing the shots, Soto said, several police vehicles stopped. He watched as the officers got out of the vehicles with their weapons drawn. Officers ran into the building, he said.
The neighborhood is typically quiet and largely Hispanic, said Ms. Soto, a manager of a nearby department store. “It’s scary,” he said of the shooting.
Hope Orozco, 27, was with her 3-year-old son at a neighbor’s house when she said she heard the shots. He said his son likes watching his neighbor’s sons play Call of Duty, the popular combat video game. At first, he said, he mistook the outside commotion for the sounds of the game.
“I was like, ‘Wait a minute, is this from television?’” Orozco said. He realized it was real after noticing that all the players were connected to headphones.
Héctor Gómez and Edgar González work in a roofing business located on the first floor of the building where the shooting occurred.
Gomez said the woman who ran the real estate office used to bring her son into the building.
“He’s a cute boy,” Gomez said.
The two men said they were convinced the woman and her son were among the victims. The woman’s truck was still in the parking lot, they said, as police conducted their investigation late into the night.
Mr. Gomez and Mr. Gonzalez generally leave the office around 5:30 pm when the shooting occurred. They left early on Wednesday. They returned after learning of the shooting from their boss.
“It could have been us,” Gomez said. “I don’t want to say this, but it probably would have been us. Because we are always the last here. “
Orange is a city of 139,000 people less than six miles from Disneyland. Late Wednesday night, a dozen police officers and fire engines blocked wide Lincoln Avenue. The squat commercial building where the shooting took place is mainly surrounded by houses and apartment buildings.
The low-rise beige building in Orange is home to several businesses, including a property management company, an insurance agency, and a consulting firm.
The owner of an auto repair shop next door, who asked not to be named, said he heard about four gunshots. A few minutes later, he said, police surrounded the building.
He heard at least 10 more shots after that, he said, although he still didn’t know exactly what had happened.
“It was strange that something like this happened next door,” he said. “We have never heard anything like this before.”
Lieutenant Amat called the shooting “a tragedy for the victims, their families, our community and our police department.” He said the city of Orange had not seen “an incident like this” since a riot in 1997 at a Caltrans maintenance yard, in which a gunman killed four people and was later killed by police in a shootout.
Governor Gavin Newsom of California said the Twitter who was rocked by the shooting.
“Horrible and heartbreaking,” he said. “Our hearts go out to the families affected by this terrible tragedy tonight.”
Rep. Katie Porter, a Democrat whose district includes part of Orange, expressed her regret at Twitter about the shooting.
“I am deeply saddened by the reports of a mass shooting in Orange County, and I continue to think about the victims and their loved ones as we continue to learn more,” he said. “My team and I will continue to monitor the situation closely.”
Louis Keene reported from Orange, California, and Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio from New York. Reporting was contributed by Neil Vigdor from Greenwich, Connecticut, Jacey Fortin from New York and Manny Fernandez from Los Angeles.
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